Federation University Australia

Federation University Australia
Motto Learn to Succeed
Type Public
Established 1994
Chancellor Dr Paul Hemming
Vice-Chancellor Prof David Battersby
Administrative staff
 558 (2012)
Students 23,187 (2012)
12,446 HE; 10,741 TAFE
Location Ballarat, Churchill and Horsham, Victoria, Australia
Affiliations Regional Universities Network
Website http://federation.edu.au/

Federation University Australia is a dual-sector university with multiple campuses in Victoria, Australia. The university is based in Ballarat, but there are also campuses in Ararat, Horsham, Stawell, Churchill and online offering technical and further education (TAFE) and Horsham's Higher Education Nursing program. The Ballarat and Mount Helen campuses offer traditional university programmes, a few of which are Business, Engineering, Education, Nursing, and Art.

In 2013 the Federation University Australia (FedUni) came into being, after the University of Ballarat merged with Monash University, Gippsland campus.

History

Heritage buildings and former Ballarat Gaol at the School of Mines and Industry. Lydiard Street, Ballarat CBD[1]

School of Mines

Federation University Australia's history goes back to the gold rush era of the 1850s. Tertiary education at Ballarat began with the establishment of the School of Mines and Industries in 1870, making it Australia's third oldest tertiary institution. In 1870 the Founders Hall at the University of Ballarat was built. People such as Redmond Barry who also founded the State Library of Victoria were involved in the original establishment to create an institution of equivalent standing to a university to offer degree level courses at Ballarat.

The School of Mines had two divisions - a tertiary division and a technical division. The tertiary division provided higher education courses such as mining engineering, geology, education and business studies, while the technical division provided such programs as wool classing, plumbing and bricklaying. The organisation remained in that form until the 1960s when it was split into two institutions. The School of Mines remained intact offering technical and secondary level programs, while the tertiary division became Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education.

Ballarat College of Advanced Education

In the 1970s the Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education was renamed Ballarat College of Advanced Education (Ballarat CAE). The Dawkins Revolution of the late 1980s saw a merger of large metropolitan colleges of advanced education with universities, and although the College struggled with the options, it chose to remain as a CAE.[nb 1]

Ballarat University College

Although Ballarat CAE chose not to merge with a university, the University of Melbourne allowed Ballarat CAE to become an affiliated college of the University. As of 1989, the name of Ballarat CAE was changed to "Ballarat University College, an affiliated College of the University of Melbourne", the actual name used on graduates' testamurs.[2][nb 2]

University of Ballarat

Desiring to be an entity in its own right,[nb 3] the university was formed by the passage of an Act of the Victorian Parliament in 1994, from the Ballarat College of Advanced Education.[3]

It subsequently merged with the Ballarat School of Mines and Industries (1870) and the Horsham-based Wimmera Institute of TAFE in 1998 to create a larger University.[3]

Federation University Australia

On September 6, 2013, the Victorian Parliament passed legislation to establish Federation University Australia,[3] comprising the University of Ballarat as well as the former Gippsland campus of Monash University.[4]

New students commencing their studies at the Gippsland campus from 2014 will study under Federation University Australia.[5] Current students at the campus will be able to complete their degree as a Monash University student.[6]

Status and rankings

Ballarat University achieved a maximum five-star rating for teaching quality in the Good Universities Guide consecutively from 2010-2014. FedUni has been ranked four-stars for graduate placement by the Good Universities Guide.[7] This placed the University in the top tier of Australian regional universities.

Ballarat University's teaching performance also was ranked in the top ten of Australian universities according to data released by the Federal Department of Education, Science and Training in 2005.

Monash University's Gippsland Campus also contributed to Monash University being ranked as sixth in the world for Education, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

Student demographics

According to the university's records as of 2011, there were 23,101 students consisting of 11,651 higher education students and 12,773 Technical and Further Education students. The report states that 11,737 students study in Ballarat, but does not differentiate between campuses within the Ballarat area. In terms of higher degrees, there were 2,246 masters students, compared to 7,420 bachelor students. In terms of students who are not located on a campus of the university, there were 8,906 students with partnership institutions such as the Melbourne Institute of Technology (MIT) and Australian Technical and Management College (ATMC).[8]

Facilities

Campuses

In addition to the following campuses, the university also had joint-degree programmes with international colleges, including PLK Vicwood KT Chong Sixth Form College in Hong Kong.

Ballarat

SMB campus is set among the heritage buildings of Lydiard Street Sth including the former School of Mines and Industry (left), former Supreme Court and former Ballarat Gaol (rear)

Western Victorian Campuses

Mount Helen campus

Located in Mount Helen, 15 km south of Ballarat, an area of beautiful natural bushland. The university's largest campus, it has two residences, Peter Lalor Hall and Bella Guerin Hall. Its programs include the School of Education and Arts; School of Health Sciences; School of Science, Information Technology and Engineering; and the Business School.

Gippsland campus

The Gippsland Campus is located in the township of Churchill in the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges. The campus is home to over 2,500 students and approximately 400 staff. Facilities include nursing, science and engineering labs; computer labs; library and study spaces; multi-purpose auditorium; bistro and cafe facilities; and the Switchback Gallery, which showcases artistic works from Gippsland and beyond.

The 160-kilometre drive from Melbourne to the campus takes about two hours, heading east on the Princes Highway, or 90 minutes by train. It is within driving distance of Victoria's Mt Baw Baw ski resort, white water rivers and coastal parks, including Wilson's Promontory and Gippsland Lakes. Nearby is the Tarra Bulga National Park, a temperate rainforest that is home to giant mountain ash trees and lyrebirds.

The campus was formerly Monash University, Gippsland campus, but became part of Federation University Australia on 1 January 2014.

Technology Park

The university has a technology park with the mission to facilitate the development of technology based companies or companies that benefit from the technological resources of the university. The following organisations operate in the park.

  • Ambulance Victoria
  • Conservation Volunteers
  • Country Fire Authority
  • Emergency Services Telecommunication
  • Global Innovation Centre
  • Greenhill Enterprise Centre
  • IBM South East Asia
  • IBM Regional Software Solutions Centre
  • ID Research
  • State Revenue Office

It is Australia's leading regional technology park. More than 1350 people are employed by tenants at the technology park and approximately half of those holding Federation University Australia qualifications. Recently IBM decided to expand its workforce with the construction of a new $10 million building on the park.[9]

Research Institutes and Centres

Institute for Regional and Rural Research and Innovation. The Institute is a research organisation that focuses on rural and regional issues.

Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Engineering Research Group (GHERG). Bringing together local and international experts, Federation University Australia's Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Engineering Research Group (GHERG) works closely with government and industry to further improve the safety and sustainability of the open-cut mines that surround the Gippsland campus. Research findings will be shared with industry across Australia and the world.[10]

Notable alumni

Honorary doctorates

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Larger metropolitan colleges were opting for mergers with existing universities, such as Chisholm Institute of Technology with Monash University, Melbourne College of Advanced Education with Melbourne University, Philip Institute of Technology with RMIT University, Lincoln Institute of Health Science and Bendigo College of Advanced Education with La Trobe University, and Victoria College and Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education with Geelong's Deakin University, Ballarat was faced with the prospect of merging with Deakin University, an option the board of Ballarat CAE did not want to accept, arguing in the words of the then director Professor John Sharpham, that "Deakin is not strong" and who attempted to arrange a merger of "equal sides" where Ballarat CAE, Warrnambool IAE, and Deakin would merge to become the University of Western Victoria. Under this arrangement, Ballarat would get 50% of voting power, with Geelong and Warrnambool the other 50%. The proposal was rejected by Deakin, which left Ballarat CAE as the only college in Victoria not to become a university.
  2. ↑ At this point it seemed that BUC would become the Ballarat campus of Melbourne University, which would have given it a sizable rural campus in Western Victoria. This, however, did not eventuate, with some critics suggesting that it was too prestigious.
  3. ↑ Ballarat University College then sought to become a fully-fledged university in its own right when Professor John Sharpham asked the board of BUC why, if Southern Cross University was allowed to separate from the University of New England by becoming a university in its own right, Ballarat should not be allowed to do the same. The Federal Government was lobbied and responded by sending three Vice-Chancellors (one of them, incidentally, being from the University of New England) to Ballarat to consider the matter. The result was favorable and the university college became a university in 1994. Its sole link to the University of Melbourne was that Melbourne would observe the academic standards at the new university for a five-year period.

References

  1. ↑ "Welcome to Federation University Australia". Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  2. ↑ Cairns, Nicole (Sep 30, 2013). "Federation University Australia to be launched today". The Courier. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "University of Ballarat becomes Federation University Australia". ABC News. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  4. ↑ "Ballarat University set to take over Monash Gippsland". ABC News. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions
  6. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions - Gippsland Future
  7. ↑ "Federation University Australia". Hobsons Course Finder. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  8. ↑ mjklklklnlknlm lnknlknlknlknlkn UB Pocket Statistics
  9. ↑ Booming Ballarat aus
  10. ↑ "Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Engineering Research Group (GHERG)". Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  11. ↑ "Australian Olympic Committee: Phil Bellingham". Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  12. ↑ Ash Lieb, Funny Guy, (Black Shadow Books, 2013). ISBN 0987493108
  13. ↑ "Welcome to Federation University Australia". Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  14. ↑ "R. W. Richards". Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 http://federation.edu.au/news?announcement_id=15005&action=view_announcement&origin_url=http://federation.edu.au/news&category_id=126
  16. ↑ http://federation.edu.au/about-feduni/our-university/history/art-and-historical-collection/honour-roll/b/professor-emeritus-geoffrey-blainey-1930-, accessed 23/05/2014
  17. ↑ Fairfax Regional Media (4 May 2011). "Filmmaker Donaldson gets honorary University of Ballarat doctorate". The Courier. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  18. ↑ "CommitteeforBallarat on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 17 July 2015.

External links

Coordinates: 37°34′34″S 143°50′46″E / 37.5761°S 143.846°E / -37.5761; 143.846

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